1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer control device and printer control method capable of multicast transmission in a network environment, and a network printer that uses the printer control device and the printer control method. The present invention further relates to a device and method for controlling replacement or supplementary printing when a printer becomes unable to print.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, the following two methods have been used by a single host computer to print a plurality of copies at printers connected to the host computer by a network.
In a first method, the host computer indicates the required number of copies to a single one of the network printers and the sends the print data to only that network printer.
In a second method, the host computer transmits the same print data sequentially to a plurality of the network printers and has each network printer print out one or more copies.
However, the first method can take a long time to print all the desired copies if the single network printer has a slow printing speed.
The second method can take a long time to complete printing all of the copies because the host computer must send out the same print data separately to each of the responsible network printers. Further, redundant sets of the same print data are transmitted across the network, thereby increasing the amount of traffic on the network and impeding other processes performed under the network environment.
With either of these methods, there will be times when transmission interference or some other reason renders printing on a network printer impossible. There has been known a method of substitute printing for such situations, wherein a different printer on the network is used as a substitute to print out remaining pages.